


burn

by melonbones



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Pirates, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bottom Lee Jeno, Fuckbuddies, M/M, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:28:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25109242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbones/pseuds/melonbones
Summary: A man like Jaemin does not need to wish; he has lived and died and lived again. The luck of gods are on his side. It is a feat that even the best of the Greeks could not have hoped to achieve. But Jeno is of the belief that there are no gods or heroes in this world, there are just men, and Jaemin—Jaemin is just a man.“If there is any providence,” Jeno starts gently, “then it says this: you must die, Na Jaemin. You will die. No amount of running can keep you from this.”Two days after their first kiss the sun bleeds gold over the Sargasso sea and they make Jaemin walk the plank.(Or: Merman Jeno, pirate captain Jaemin, and a series of battles.)
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 22
Kudos: 118





	burn

**Author's Note:**

> **additional content warning:** mentions of hanging and execution, minor and temporary character deaths, au-typical violence, blood and burning, mentions of drowning, slight d/s but everything is consensual

“Kneel,” is the only thing Jaemin says, and the only thing he will say for the rest of the night. His voice is salted and thin, and Jeno drinks it up, falls to the ground. His legs spread wide over the splintered wood. The boat rocks gently in the harbour sway and Jeno feels himself lean into its movement, but he keeps himself steady, keeps himself good. This is not a punishment after all and he will not make it one. 

This is—

Jaemin grasps Jeno by the chin and tips his face up with a single, rough movement. Their eyes meet. Too dark to parse in the flickering whisky candlelight, but the edge of Jaemin’s lip curls up, the corner of a dog-eared book. 

Read between the lines. This could mean anything. 

Jeno parts his lips and a thumb slips inside, pressing down against his tongue, and pushing further back. His eyes flutter shut. Jaemin explores; thumb over gum, the back of his teeth. Then, something else. His cock sliding in without pause. Jeno tries to gasp but there is no room left in his body.

The hand holding his chin moves back and grips his hair to keep Jeno stable, anchoring them both upright as he fucks his mouth at a rapidly growing pace. It is vicious, and it is relentless, and Jeno is whining and shaking with the effort to keep still, to be good. Jaemin pulls Jeno off him with a slick, wet pop, and slaps his cheek with the tip of his cock, smearing spit and cum over his flushed skin. Dries off his tears with a tender brush of his hand. 

Through it all, he does not make a sound. 

/

Two swords clash and eclipse the early morning sun. 

Jeno woke only hours ago on the sea bed, his hair tangled with silt and sand, one of Jaemin’s shirts fluttering loosely over his body in the underwater current. He is up on the deck, now, and it still has yet to dry. Hours pass in moons, these days. He blinks. 

One sword pushes against the other in a tidal surge of strength and tips it back over the edge where it slips out of grasp and clatters to the deck below. 

Jaemin sighs. 

“You’re getting better, but I don’t need better, Jisung. I need _best.”_

He drops his sword down on the deck and crosses the distance to stand in front of Jisung, who looks down at his own sword laying by his feet. Jaemin has his gaze focused on Jisung’s face. What does he read, Jeno wonders, in the furrow line of those eyebrows?

“You’re stronger than me,” Jisung says, still looking down at his sword. “I couldn’t—”

“You couldn’t?” Jaemin questions in a voice that is unexpectedly soft. When Jisung doesn’t reply, he bends down and picks up the sword. It is identical to one Jaemin carries, the same smooth metal blade, the same polished handle and hilt. An even playing ground. Fairness, if a man like Jaemin could be called fair. 

Jaemin turns the sword over in his hands, slicing through light and air. 

“You couldn’t,” he says again. Not a question this time, no room for argument or opportunity. There is steel in his words. A knife through the throat. He flips the sword over. “If you couldn’t, when it really mattered, you would be dead. You understand this.” 

At last, Jisung looks away from the sword. He understands. They all do. Their mortality is forever staring them in the face, the sunlit sliver of reflection in the blade, clear and alive where the blood does not touch. Such is truth—bloodied and inescapable. Jeno was born of the oceans and even he cannot wash himself of it. Where they can, they buy time. Sharpen their blades. Put distance between them and the stars. 

Hand the sword back to Jisung, and make sure he doesn’t let go. Drills and swordwork until he sweats. 

/

“You said, once, that he was the most skilled swordsman you’d ever met.” 

Jaemin has his hands on the wheel, keeping steady. The ship glides through the waves and Jeno is helpless in its pull. They do not know where they are going, just—away. 

“He is,” Jaemin says, matter-of-fact. Does not spare a look behind him at where Jisung spars with empty space, his movements sluggish with fatigue and sea-sickness. 

“Then why can’t he land a hit on you?” Jeno asks. 

The ship crests over a wave and the light shifts. A shadow of a smile across Jaemin’s face. 

“Because he wouldn’t dare.”

/

The door to their chambers does not close all the way, and as Jaemin presses him back against the rickety wood, he can feel the ocean air seep through the cracks. Wet enough that something inside of Jeno unmoors. 

“You should—”

 _—kiss me,_ he doesn’t say. Jaemin looks up anyway. Mouth pulling off Jeno’s neck. Like he knows. 

They stand there, pressed close, breathing into each other’s mouths, but never closer. Jeno sees him as if through glass.

A hairline fracture in the space between them. What gives?

/

Jeno dares. Facedown, ass in the air, pushed further and further up the bed with each punishing thrust. The sheets under his mouth are wet with drool and cum and Jeno cries into them, small punched out sounds that he can’t hold back. Jaemin pulls out and flips him over onto his back, sliding back in once he’s got Jeno where he wants him. 

It’s—a lot. And Jeno takes it because he’s good, because he likes the way Jaemin fits inside him, the way he knows every inch of his body, where to bite, to hit just right.

But this time. This time, he asks, “Why do I always have to be under you?” and Jaemin doesn’t slow down. If anything he pushes in harder, faster, not even fucking in at this point, just grinding. 

“Do you not want to be?” Jaemin responds in that unfairly smooth voice. Jeno flushes and squeezes his eyes shut. At his lack of response, Jaemin begins to move his hand lower, inching, oh so slow. “Tell me what you want, Jeno,” he drawls, voice dangerous. “You need to tell me what you want.”

Jeno opens his eyes only to roll them. Knows that it’s petulant. “You’re not going to give it to me anyway.”

Jaemin slows, pulls out. Jeno opens his mouth to complain but then Jaemin is shifting back and lowering down, taking Jeno’s thighs and pushing them up so that he’s folded in half in order to bend down and lick at the messy wreck of his hole. His legs burn, if Jeno even knows what burnt is, and—

Jaemin’s tongue flicks up to his balls and then further north to lap up at the mess on his stomach, the head of his cock. Lightning pleasure through his body. His eyes roll back in his head. 

—it would be this, he thinks.

It would be this. 

/

Three hours before sunrise, the sound of warning bells. Jaemin jerks out of bed still in his night-shirt and grabs his sword. Pulls an unsheathed dagger out from under his pillow, the blade edge catching the cotton and tearing a hole. He hands it to Jeno who is still dazed with sleep. 

“The water.” There’s only a hint of urgency in his voice but enough that Jeno notices and sits up straighter. “It’s safer—”

“I can handle myself.”

Jaemin pauses where he’s pulling on his boots and stares at Jeno. The lines of his shoulders soften slightly. Still pulled taught, spine a wooden mast, but softer. “You can,” he says. Relief in his voice. “Of course you can.”

Then, he leaves, the door swinging shut behind him but still not fully closed. Jeno can see the deck full of men readying themselves for battle, the shimmer of a hundred sword glints.

There is movement in the hold below and the ship jerks, changing course. Jeno is flung back into bed with the force of it. Duck feathers spill out of the pillow and he sneezes, vision blurring.

Grasping the hilt of the dagger, he pushes out of the cabin, still unable to fully see. People move around him in blurs, smudges of firelight, the heady smell of gunpowder. Jeno blinks. In the distance, something—breaks, a heavy-shot sound like the sky tearing with thunder. Jeno hopes it is.

It’s not. 

A cannonball smashes into the deck. Jeno’s vision clears suddenly and he sees embers and upturned wood, shredded like shrapnel where it once lay flat. The gutted half-bodies of men crushed beneath fallen masts.

There is silence. Acceptance. Then, the realisation that Jaemin is out there, and Jisung may be among them. 

Jeno’s breath comes out white. He is only half-aware of the dagger in his hand as he runs across the deck, through crowds of men fighting against an unknown enemy and quickly sinking ship. Each clash of sword turns Jeno’s head. 

“Jaemin!” he calls out but the words are lost among the sound of battle. 

He does not know where to go. Where to look. 

Then—

A mast breaks out of place and crashes into the sea, tearing a gash through the ship on its way down and sending water spilling across the deck. Jeno is ankle-deep. 

There’s the familiar stir of power inside him, his skin prickling where flesh gives way to razor scale, and— _No._ Not yet. He can’t—not until he finds Jaemin and Jisung, and— 

The cloud of smoke and embers clears over the fallen mast. Jeno sees Jaemin fighting by the helm, his shirt soaked through with soot and blood. 

He runs. 

Through the water flooding the deck, blue turned black turned red with blood, against the tilt of the ship favouring its left side as it capsizes belly-up, over the broken bodies and bones, not stopping for the hands that grasp desperately at his ankles now scabbed over with scales as he struggles over the fallen mast and up to the helm.

Jeno takes a breath. Feels the dagger in his palms. He has held one before of course, even partaken in sword practice at the behest of Jaemin’s worry, but he’s never— he has never— 

The ship lurches and Jaemin swivels around to face him. Surprise evident on his face. Fear. His enemy swings down at him and Jaemin just barely manages to parry in time, and Jeno can see how tired he is, how his muscles strain through the torn shreds of his shirt.

They are going to lose this battle. There is only so much time left. It is inevitable. 

Jeno waits until the enemy backs Jaemin in closer to the edge of the ship, without escape but for the sword or the sea. Precisely where Jeno wants him. And just as the enemy raises his sword in what would be a deciding blow, Jeno lunges forward and buries the dagger in the back of the man’s neck. 

His movements cut short, the sword in the air struck frozen before it clatters to the floor. Jaemin’s eyes widen. 

Jeno takes two last steps forward before his legs give out. Jaemin keeps him from sagging limply onto the deck by bearing his weight on his chest, but it’s too much, even for a man with strength like Jaemin; Jeno’s body is all corded muscle, heavy with a power that no human could ever hope to understand. 

Jaemin staggers backward under his weight, and Jeno is helpless to do anything but follow as they tumble over the side of the ship and down to the seas below. 

/

Jaemin cuts his finger on Jeno’s tail, once. He had been tracing over the scales idly while Jeno sat in the bath, half of his tail spilling over the rim of the tub, the soft vane of fin at the end brushing the floor. And he was curious, has had every part of Jeno before, in every way he possibly could, but never _this._

Jeno’s tail is pretty. He is not conceited, but this he knows as fact. Skin becomes scale at the hip, his sunned complexion melting into pearly scales that glitter in the light like the opal insides of a shucked oyster. Pretty, but sharp; each scale is filed into knifepoint ends, so unlike the kind colour of his tail and gentle curls of fin that it is almost too easy to pass over. 

And Jaemin’s finger had snagged on them. Whether he had not noticed their potency Jeno is not sure (a part of him that Jeno buries deep knows that would be impossible), but his finger snags all the same.

“Not many have had the honour of me bleed for them,” Jaemin said, voice faintly proud. It only made Jeno feel sick. Looking down at the blood spreading across his scales, the water in the bathtub, small moonpools on the floor. 

His stomach turning over even more when Jaemin held his finger up to the light, a crescent wound where the scale had cut through skin. 

“You are dangerous, Jeno Lee,” he said, voice full of wonderment. “You are truly dangerous.”

/

They surface at a seaside town far enough away that word of the battle has not yet reached. 

Jaemin sits, shivering on the rocks as he waits for Jeno to dry and his tail to become legs again. It is a long and tired process. One that Jeno is not too fond of. But after everything that has happened, he could not stand to leave Jaemin by himself. 

He thinks, momentarily, of Jisung. The thought is painful enough that he chokes on a breath. 

Once he is dried, he changes into clothes that Jaemin stole from the washing lines of a neighbouring house, and they make their way into town. They pass several bounty posters plastered on the walls and notice boards and they tear them down one by one. There will be no need for them come tomorrow, but the time it takes is worth the small smile on Jaemin’s face. 

“Are you hungry?” Jaemin asks as they pass a bustling pub, too full and bright for them to enter without being noticed. Jeno shakes his head and they continue onward. Then, Jaemin asks, “Are you hurt?” 

This makes him pause. It is a stupid question. Jeno frowns. “No. Are _you?”_

And perhaps that was even stupider. Jaemin’s face crumbles like the bounty poster he balled up in his fist only minutes before, and he turns on Jeno, eyes as empty as this cold summer night. 

“Do I look hurt?” he asks, letting nothing bleed into his voice. “Do I _sound_ hurt?”

“No,” Jeno replies after a second of deliberation. There are no right answers. 

“Then I am not hurt.” 

It is a lie. Or not. There is a balance to be struck, and Jeno knows they have not met it yet. 

The ship is turned fully on its side. Something has to give.

/

The remnants of their crew turn up in dregs. There are those who fall to their knees at the sight of their captain who they once thought dead. There are those who run with fear at the thought of duty and obligation. Those whose mortal wounds have healed but whose mental wounds will throb for eternity. 

There is Jisung, shaken with fear, his legs torn with scars. Jisung with his sword tucked into his belt, still dressed in charred clothes. Jisung, who smiles at the sight of Jaemin, and hides his face in Jeno’s neck. 

Who breathes in his scent and says, _“captain”._

/

Anticipation simmers. Memory aches. But this—Jeno does not have a name for this, this—itch. It only builds, waves crashing against his ribcage, slowly filling his lungs. They have everything, now, and still it is not enough. Jeno wants more and he hates himself for it. 

_Jaemin_ wants more, and Jeno hates him for it. 

He arches his back, face pressed against the wall, mouth slack around a moan as Jaemin slams into him, driving deeper and deeper with each thrust as though searching. As though trying to fill this hollow. It is pleasure to the point of pain and Jeno feels used. He sobs with it. Cries with it. Begs Jaemin for more, because he’s fucked up like that. 

And Jaemin gives it to him. Grasps Jeno by the hips to pull him into position and fucks in so hard that Jeno cannot breathe. 

_“Fucking—”_ he gasps, the sentence broken when Jaemin shoves himself inside again with a crude rhythm that Jeno struggles to adjust to. “Fu— fucking— why do you _fuck_ like that?” he gasps.

“Like what?”

“Like—” _you’re trying to give yourself to me, but you hate yourself for it. Like you hate me for it._ “—like you’re trying to gut me, like a fish.” 

Of all things, it’s that which gives Jaemin pause. He laughs, a wet rumbling sound that Jeno can feel through his back like rain on a wooden roof, and does not respond. Trails the jagged edges of his fingernails down to dig into Jeno’s thighs like splinters. Gets under Jeno’s skin. In his bones.

It isn’t an answer, and yet, Jeno _knows._ He knows, and it hurts, and he hates himself because he’s always known. 

Dig your fingers into flesh and pull out those splinters one by one. See how much you bleed.

  
  


/

“You’re not thankful,” Jeno says. Taunts, as though he cannot help himself. “If you were thankful then you wouldn’t be acting like this.”

Jaemin’s eyes narrow as if daring him. “Acting like what?”

Jeno _dares._ “Like a god,” he says. “You act like a god, like you’re untouchable, like—” The metallic slice through air as Jaemin unsheathes his sword and points it at Jeno’s mouth like he’s eviscerating him of words, but Jeno is not afraid. How can he be, when this is Jaemin? He is not a god. He is not untouchable. He just is. 

Jeno continues speaking. 

“You want revenge. I understand that. We all want it. But when it comes down to it, Jaemin, when it comes down to it and you are left at the mercy of the seas once again, I am the one who will save you. Not your sword or your riches or providence. Fuck providence! Was it there that night, on the ship, on the open ocean? Jaemin, there are no gods or heroes in this world. There are just men, and you—Jaemin, you are just a man.” 

The sword does not even tremble. Jaemin’s hold is firm and reliable and his words are even more sure when he says, simply, _“If,”_ and says no more.

“What?” Jeno frowns and half-wonders if Jaemin is the one whose sentences have been struck down before they can fully form. 

_“If_ it comes down to it. Not when. If.” 

All of Jeno’s hope vanishes with those few words; Jaemin cannot be this blinded. 

“You really are just a man,” Jeno says again, another taunt, and one that Jaemin does not rise to. Where else is there to go from here—a sword to the throat? There is only bloodshed and flayed flesh and Jeno is not human; these blades do not hold a candle to the magic in his skin. To prove his point, Jeno reaches up and grasps the sword in his hand. He does not move it away, allowing it to stay pointed at where he is most vulnerable, but he lets Jaemin know that while there may not be gods there are still creatures that exist above man. And Jaemin is not one of these. “If there is any providence,” Jeno starts gently, “then it says this: you must die, Na Jaemin. You _will_ die. No amount of running can keep you from this.”

 _“You_ can,” Jaemin says, and that— that was not what Jeno wanted him to take away from this, not exactly. An acknowledgement of the role he played, yes, but only in order for Jaemin to realise that his newfound and so-called immortality has its limits. 

This is not that. Jeno can see it in his eyes, the way they glitter like they do as he holds a ruby to candlelight; as though it is a prize to be won. 

It takes all of his strength not to physically recoil. Jeno takes a readying breath and channels that feeling as he says, “No.”

Jaemin only smiles. “Yes, you can,” he says. “I’ve seen it.” His eyes pull away at last to where Jeno is holding the tip of his sword, the soft skin on his hands unmarred and uncut. “I’ve felt it. You are powerful beyond measure. I know I will not die so long as I have you by my side.” 

Jeno releases his grip on the sword. His hand falls to his side, and part of Jeno wishes that he knew the touch of blade. Maybe it would hurt less. 

“What if I’m not there,” he whispers. “When it comes down to it, what if I’m not by your side to save you?”

And Jeno does not know what he expects. There has never been comfort between them, never been anything more than give and take, but he is not prepared for the way his stomach drops at Jaemin’s next words. 

It feels like falling. 

Like that night on the ship as they held each other and sunk down into the sea. 

“If,” Jaemin says and lowers his sword. He looks into the reflection, turning it over twice to consider himself from both sides. “If you are not there when it comes down to it… then, Jeno. Then, I shall gladly die.”

/

Beer over tongue, the crackle of foam against the roof of his mouth. Jaemin watches from across the room as Jeno finishes another pint, slamming it down on the bar counter. His corner of the pub is imperious. A temple. Platters of seafood and offerings of water and wine are spread out before him, yet he does not bite. 

The festivities do not quiet even as the night draws on. Their remnants of their crew—torn apart by battle and war—find each other again through word of mouth. They gather in the seaside town and celebrate the life of their captain who they once thought dead. In the dark, they mourn the dead drowned at the bottom of the sea. 

Jeno grows dizzy with drink, and he sways in his seat, body rolling like the first time he gave up his tail for legs. Jaemin had been there to catch him, then—strong arms cradling Jeno’s wet, naked body, slippery skin against silk shirt. 

He does not catch Jeno now. Watches from across the room as he tips too far back and crashes to the wooden floor below. There is a chorus of cheers. Calls for more beer. Someone laying a hand on his forehead. 

“Fuck you,” Jeno coughs out at the ceiling, too tired to move. A chandelier swimming above him like twelve fractured suns. Jaemin leaning over him. Just one. “Fuck you,” he says again. “You’re terrible.”

Jaemin holds out a hand to help him up. He does not register it at first, and when he does, he wonders if he should give Jaemin that power. _More_ power. A spiteful part of him wants to leave Jaemin hanging, leave him wondering where it went wrong. 

_What gives?_

He becomes acutely aware of the world around them, drawing louder like suddenly surfacing after years at sea. The bitter tang of rum and alcohol. The humid warmth of breath and sweat. A celebration of people chanting _Jaemin_ and _pirate_ and _king of kings._

Jaemin pulls him to his feet and he falls forward, unused to these bruised bones and trembling knees. His chest smells of salt and quiet sex. Jeno leans in and presses his ear against his ribcage like listening for the sea through a shell. 

Feels the soft rumble of his voice when Jaemin says, “No. I’m not.”

/

Rumour spreads like wildfire. 

Na Jaemin—king of pirates, king of kings—rises from the dead. Went over the side of a burning ship, they say, and walked out of the ocean unscathed. By his side stood a man with a tail for legs and nails as sharp as a sword. 

They say that he is a devil. They say that he is a god. Some drop to their knees at the sight of their ship and make offerings of food and wine and firstborn children if only to spare them, to spare us, _please,_ we beg of you—

The bounties on their backs turn into targets, and the bullseye is for Jeno: a merman, a devil, a _god,_ untouched by blade with claws that rend flesh from bone. 

No longer is there any safe place to hide. Their ship is known by all: the deep scars and gashes carved into the side become a brand, and all manners of men try their hand at capturing the famed captain and king, if only for the bounties or the right to brag at bringing a god to his knees. 

It is a strange feeling: to all of a sudden become known, to become seen. Where he was once used to floating at the bottom of the seas, his quiet days are now filled with uproar and prayer. 

They would Jaemin’s head on a spear but they would have Jeno at their feet. 

They would have him on an altar, at the end of the world. 

/

“Our Jeno,” Jaemin says as he twirls a lock of Jeno’s hair around his finger. “How does it feel knowing the whole world wants you? They say that you’re a god. They worship you, Jeno. They worship you.”

A memory of a conversation. Twelve fractured suns and the ceiling swimming like pond water. Bitterness in the air: the sourness of beer and Jaemin saying _no_ but meaning something else entirely. That same bitterness now. 

“You know that I’m not,” Jeno says. “You know what I am.”

“Do I? Jeno. I wouldn’t blame you if you were to leave. For a person like you, surely, there must be something greater than this.”

The steady cadence of words seemingly spoken without lie. Jeno is almost pulled along, but he knows Jaemin. He knows him. This is not— this is not—

Jeno rolls over and the sheets shift with his movement, tugging at his skin. A hangnail caught in the threads. Shredding. 

They are so close to unravelling. What can he do, he wonders as he takes Jaemin’s face in his hands. What can he do to keep this from falling apart. 

Jaemin’s eyes are dazed and washed out as he stares up at Jeno straddling him. It is as though he does not register anything—touch, movement, the hands around his cheeks so close to pulse point. If Jeno were to shift now, if he were as the rumours say, he could spear Jaemin's throat with that hangnail and let him bleed out into the bed. It would be a sacrifice. It would be mercy. 

Instead, Jeno kisses him. He holds Jaemin still with a brush of his thumb over the line of his jaw, and he bends down to kiss him chastely on the lips. 

His lips taste warm, like sunned honey and summer fig, but salty, too, with tears. One of them is crying, Jeno realises. One of them is crying or perhaps it is both. Jeno does not know and cannot tell; all he can feel is warmth, the slack press of Jaemin’s lips against his own, lazy as they lick into each other’s mouths. 

Jeno pulls back, dizzy, and stares down at Jaemin, seemingly unaffected save for his swollen, pink lips. The spit on his chin. The blood where Jeno bit down. 

“Do you understand, now?” Jeno asks. “Do you see what I’m saying? What I’ve given for you? What I _would_ give?” 

Jaemin blinks. The fog clears and his eyes trail down to where his hands are anchored around Jeno’s waist. He blinks again. Licks his lips. Rolls them over, so it’s Jeno on his back and Jaemin hovering above him, held up on his forearms. Close enough that it would only take a breath for their chests to touch. 

“Who you are,” Jaemin starts. “What you are.” He leans down and brushes his lips over Jeno, slats of sunlight through the gossamer curtain. “You are _mine,_ Jeno Lee. You are mine.” 

/

“I wish,” Jaemin says and does not continue. The words are a sigh against Jeno’s mouth, breath over a place that Jeno wants him most. It makes him—antsy. He licks his lips, careful to keep his tongue inside the lines, and shifts back enough that the space between them grows cold. 

A man like Jaemin does not need to wish; he has lived and died and lived again. The luck of gods are on his side. It is a feat that even the best of the Greeks could not have hoped to achieve. 

He takes from life as Jeno picks oranges from trees, and still, he wishes. Only half. Leaves it hanging between them, the knowledge of his greed overripe and weighing down the fickle branch. 

Still, he does not stop taking. Jeno is aware of it—they are all aware of it, of how much Jaemin _takes_ these days, of how he thinks that he can get away with it; he does not hide it, would never hide, but he walks now with an untouchable air. As though he is Jeno, whose skin does not break like fruit under the bite of blades. 

As though the world around him is burning, and it is only he who knows water. 

/

  
  


A battle on the southern horizon:

The warning bells come during dinner and Jeno is halfway to drunk. He does not know where he’s placed his dagger and so he grasps for anything he can—a knife, blunted by bread and butter, or the glittering shard of a pint hastily broken underfoot, he is not sure which, and the decision takes a beat too long. Men break into the dinner hall and hold a sword to his neck. They watch him falter with dirty smirks, call him _pretty,_ and Jeno growls. 

Hurls the shard of glass through the air, watching as it spins and spins and slices cleanly through the neck of one of the men. Blood splatters in an arc across the floorboards. 

They do not hesitate to attack.

Jeno is fast. He ducks under stabs and parries slashes with the meat of his forearm, using the few precious seconds of bewilderment to dart out of range and escape through the open doors. 

As he flees the halls, a sword comes down on his back and knocks the breath out of him. His skin is too thick to penetrate with mortal sword, but the sheer unexpected force still knocks him out of reverie and into adrenaline. He whirls around, grasps the sword, and in a heartbeat of unthinking fear, he— _twists_ _._ The metal bends like water and the man holding it is powerless to do anything but watch. He trembles, eyes wide, and takes several steps back. 

Drops the sword. He _runs._

And—oh. 

Oh. 

It takes a few drunken breaths for Jeno’s mistake to become obvious. He should not have done that. He should not have shown them.

Jeno should chase after him. He makes to, but out of the corner of his eye he spots a flurry of movement: Jisung dual-wielding blades and fending off several enemies at once, flipping back and forth between positions as he parries and dodges, but even for a swordsman of his prowess Jeno knows that it is a losing fight. 

He turns and runs to Jisung instead. 

All it takes is a single flash of strength and Jeno takes down two on Jisung’s rear, stunning the rest into a moment of quiet that allows Jisung to push back, disarming one more and easily fending off the other two with his double swords. 

The relief that swims through Jeno almost knocks him to the ground. Secret be damned, he turns on his foes with all the force in his body. He breaks so many bones his hands have memorised their crunch. Fends off so many swords his skin starts to tingle. 

Even the best of nature’s creations can be worn down under significant strain, but Jeno does not give up. Through it all, he fights and breaks swords and revels in the shock and fear of men as Jeno’s true nature dawns on them. It feels like raw power. The sudden release of it after years of keeping quiet is dizzying, and briefly, he thinks he understands what Jaemin sees when he yearns after _more;_ it is terrific, it is terrifying, and it is everything that lies in that deep chasm between. 

Jeno reaches down in that dark place inside of himself and pulls out more strength than he knows what to do with. 

His nails lengthen into claws that glitter like his scales and soon no longer is he breaking bones but shredding flesh. His body is driven on sheer impulse—on instinct—this deep, primal instinct that pushes him to _destroy._

Out of the corner of his eye Jeno sees Jisung stop. His sword hangs limply at his side, no match for the untamed creature that pulls flesh from bone. Jisung stops, and he stares, mouth hanging open around the questions he cannot voice. The rumours that he knows now to be true. 

_Are you the difference between a battle won and a battle lost?_

More ships arrive with sails both black and white. The deck is overwhelmed with fighting, with enemies on all sides, and there is no time for Jeno to answer his questions and quell his fear. He turns his back on Jisung and disarms two men lunging at them with swords. 

_What exists in the spaces between lines and reality, in the truth between words?_

Across the ship Jeno hears Jaemin call out his name. It is not a cry of desperation—not yet, please god, _not yet—_ but it gives Jeno pause. 

He falters, his attention torn between Jisung and his swords, between the battle spread out on the deck before him, and between his captain.

This entire world mapped out with ink and astrolabe and still Jeno does not know where his loyalties lie. 

_Are you a devil, are you a god, or are you more?_

Jisung is a boy, Jaemin is a man, and Jeno cannot be put in a box. He is made of scale, and it is he who brings judgement upon man; they come before him with their swords bearing battle and Jeno tells them they must die. 

Jeno is life. Jeno is death. And he can see when a battle is to be won or lost. 

They overwhelm Jisung in the minutes that Jeno turns his back. He does not see what it is that makes him fall, but by the time Jeno turns his attention around, Jisung is kneeling on the deck with a dagger to his throat. Jeno moves to set him free but a gang of men turn on him with torches.

What burns? Jeno wondered once, long ago. What burns?

Torches swung in front of his face, forcing him to kneel beside Jisung. Flame held to his skin as they tied his arms behind his back. Flesh untouched by blade bubbling under heat. 

_This burns._

/

Two days after their first kiss, the sun bleeds gold over the Sargasso sea, and they make Jaemin walk the plank. 

Jisung is crying somewhere, the sandpaper sound of his struggling against the deck, and Jeno can feel his own ropes biting into his skin. The friction as they wither and tighten. 

The deck is full of men, of enemy, all with their swords and daggers pointed like compass needles to Jaemin standing at the end of the plank, the lines of his body drawn in liquid gold. His arms are bound behind his back and there is a noose around his throat. They cut it loose once the masts began to crumble and became unable to bear his weight. 

That was the first scare. The second—

They look at Jisung, crying and gasping around the gag in his mouth, and they laugh. Press a sword to his throat and marvel at the drops of blood that roll down his skin. The defiance, and loyalty in his eyes. Something they wish they all had. When this is over they will go home with their arms full of gold and pledge allegiance to a newer, more bountiful sun. 

This passion means nothing to them. They pass him over. 

The third—

Jeno, with his anger a red-hot brand across his heart. The first permanent mark against his flesh. For all the hurt Jaemin has inflicted over the years they have known each other, for all he has bitten Jeno and bruised him and fucked him until neither of them could breathe, for all the impossible that Jaemin has achieved, this is something that even he could have never hoped to imagine. 

He cannot hide it. He cannot escape it. It will remain there, raised and aching, until his skin turns to sand. 

They know him for what he is, now. Know where he is weak. They approach him with torches like backing a wild animal into a corner. Jeno flinches back as they come closer but he is helpless to do anything as they lift him up, keeping him docile with the threat of flame. 

He is dragged over to the side of the ship and pressed up against the rails but still, the men come closer, the air steadily thawing with heat until he can feel his cheeks begin to flush red. 

His eyes dart to Jisung crying across the deck, to Jaemin standing at the end of the plank, the waves churning beneath him, and his heart sinks.

The flames grow closer and he is blinded but for the light in front of him, and Jeno realises: there is no fate or god or providence; his hands are tied behind his back. 

There is only one option left for him. 

With one last look at Jaemin standing at the end of the plank, Jeno rears back against the railing, pressing against it until there is no space left. In these last few seconds, time seems to stop. An hourglass turned fully on its head. He swallows down the vertigo, allows himself to breathe in singed air, and then tips himself over the side. 

Jeno falls backward, and his stomach _swoops._

Last time this happened he was not alone. Jaemin was tucked against his body, a steady weight that kept Jeno grounded as they fell, but now Jeno is alone and it feels—empty, wrong. 

He is weightless. He is falling. And Jaemin— Jaemin is stood on the plank above him. 

There is no fate or god or providence. In these last moments there is only hope, and all Jeno can do is believe he made the right decision, if this was a decision at all. If there was any chance that this could be saved. 

His vision blurs over with tears. The world ripples around him as though seen through water, the sunlight fracturing, refracting, spilling out endless colour—something, somewhere, has broken irreparably. 

They say that there are colours beyond those that our eyes can see. Are they beautiful, Jeno wonders? Some part of him never wants to find out.

He closes his eyes, and waits until he hits the water below. 

  
  



End file.
